O4 Corp. gets $15M to expand - Tampa Bay Business Journal:

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O4 Corp. — which stands for Out Of OfficedOperations — develops mobile software applications that consume products manufacturers such as and use to instruct sale reps to check inventory levels, productw displays and pricing information in retail stores. The technology also wirelesslg transmits data and product orders backto headquarters. While consumee goods manufacturers spend significantlyon in-store marketing promotions and new producf launch, “they really don’t get visibilityy into what’s happening at the retail shelf,” said Laurqa Witt, general partner at , a Baltimore-baser venture firm that invested the $15 O4’s software empowers manufacturers’ eyes and ears in retail stores — their sales force, Witt “It makes them much more effective and she said.
O4’s technology, designed to run on hand-helfd devices, is highly flexible, said Dale Hagemeyer, consumer goodzs technology analystat “Think of it as a 12-way adjustabler seat,” Hagemeyer said. “It reallgy contours to how people dotheir O4’s globe-trotting chief, Desmond Miller, has an ambitious growth trajectory for his O4’s subscriber base is projected to explode from abour 25,000 today to about 250,00o users in the next three years, Miller from Sydney, Australia.
“We are showing a tremendous ROI (returnb on investment) to the marker right now in verydifficult times,” said Miller, who livesa in Australia and splits his time between North Asia and Europe. “We are able to show paybacjk for these systems in months and not and we are giving our customers an edge in the O4 expects to hit its growth targets by adding new customerws and selling more services and products toexisting ones. “It’se not just being an inch deep with the O4 U.S. President Harri Fogel said. “It’s [about] beinvg a mile wide and a mile deep.
” ABS Capital was impressed with O4’s “momentum” and its blue-chipl client roster. “It was clear to us that they must be offerinf something of value for the consumerproducts industry,” Witt ABS, which invests in later-stag e growth companies in the business services, media and communications, and software sectors, was a major investore in , which raised $112 million in an initial publicx offering in mid-April.
O4 will invesr the $15 million the company’s first institutionap round — into developing an global customer support transitioning froma software-licensing to a software-as-a-subscriptionb model and executing a geographixc and product expansion. The compan sees “huge opportunities” in the emergingb markets of Latin America, Eastern Europe and China, wher e consumer products companies have armies of mobil e workers that can benefitfrom O4’sz software. “A consumer products multinational mighythave 10,000 mobile workeres in China alone,” Fogek said. “We are about users.
” The globall strategy is critical as O4 keeps pace with itsmultinationalo customers, who are themselves chasing overseaas demand. “The customer is going where there are more mouthzs to feed and more feetto Gartner’s Hagemeyer said. “If P&G is going into Asia and LatihnAmerica ... you want to follow P&Gy wherever P&G wants to go.”